"For Christmas"

I think I may have seen the true meaning of Christmas the other day, a meaning that shuns the commercialization and stress of the holidays and gets to the heart of its meaning. Those of us who play this APBA game can probably relate.

I was in a drug store late this past week, grabbing up prescriptions and getting last-minute Christmas cards to send out, hoping they’d reach their destinations in time and, thus, conforming to the holiday requirements.

Without sounding too politically incorrect, I noticed an obviously handicapped woman in her 30s looking at a rack of toys in the store. She took one out and showed it to the person who was with her.

“An airplane,” she said with glee.

She looked at it, turning the toy plane in her hands, all while beaming a large smile.

“Do you want it,” the person asked her.

“For Christmas,” she said.

And there it was. Despite whatever reason life took a steaming dump on her and left her facing her handicap, be it genetic, environmental, whatever, she was happy. She found something she liked and wanted to get it, citing the holiday of giving.

I thought of my own life. We’re constantly on the treadmill of life, running to our job (in my case, two jobs and a freelance writing startup attempt); trying to pay bills on time; dealing with stresses, illnesses of getting older, aches and pains; and just trying to be a decent provider and human. Christmas lately seems more a stumbling block than a time of joy and celebration.

When I was in news, I’d usually work the holiday so others could be off to be with their families. Invariably, I’d end up writing some tough story. One year, on Christmas Eve, I went to a small airplane crash that killed the pilot. Another year, I covered a suspected arson fire of former Pres. Bill Clinton’s boyhood home. It was hard seeing the meaning of Christmas when you were covering the downside of humanity.

But the woman in the drug store sparked something in me.

And here’s where APBA comes in. Many of us, I assume, became initiated with the game at an early age through Christmas. I did. I had played various sports games as a youngster – electric football and baseball, Pop Tarts card baseball and Sherco II baseball.  My parents got me the APBA football game in 1977 as what I call the “headliner” of Christmas – the present pushed far beneath the tree and handed out at the last because it was the best gift.

Now, 42 years later, I continue to play APBA. It’s been baseball for the past 21 years mostly, but I still have the football game, along with a collection of hockey, basketball and baseball games and seasons accrued over the years.

And, like I’ve said here before, what other game have we carried with us and kept it as a mainstay through our lives? On Christmas night Wednesday, I plan to roll a few more games in my replay, this time the 1947 season, like I’ve done so many Christmas over the past four decades.

With all that is going on now in my world – dealing with life, a new job, depression and all, there is still joy in the game. I think that’s one of the great appeals of the APBA products. It gives us a chance to revert back to our younger days when life wasn’t so much of a struggle.

So this holiday season, think of how the APBA game still gives us joy and happiness, and try to hold onto that for a while. I know I will.

You know … for Christmas.

Pythagorean Theorem Applied

Each team in my 1947 APBA baseball replay has reached 40, or nearly 40 games, played this season. With 25 percent of the games completed, teams are beginning to show what they are capable of doing and how the season could turn out.

Of course, there’s still a lot of games to be played and, as APBA players know, anything can happen. Trends can change, players can get hot, teams can go on streaks. So, it’s somewhat premature to try and predict how the American League and National League will turn out.

But, that said, one of the characteristics of a true APBA fan is the obsession for statistics and math. I’ve noted before that I don’t keep many detailed stats for a replay. Every time I tried before, I ran into computer issues. I had two die on me and once, in a moment of confidence, I put my stats on a laptop I used at work. I was suddenly laid off and the computer was no longer accessible.  But, grabbing a calculator and a pen and figuring out batting average and earned run averages is still a vital part of why I do this game.

This year, I’m tracking home runs and RBIs, won-lost records and saves for all. And I’m keeping game-by-game batting averages for Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. All are jotted down on paper so I won’t lose it by being either computer inept or a victim of journalism layoff economics.

So, with a quarter of the season completed, it looks like the Yankees and Red Sox are in a dead heat. Detroit is a good team as well, following closely behind. The Washington Senators are proving to be a really poor team in the American League. In the National League, fueled by Whitey Kurowski’s 11 home runs so far, the Cardinals are by far the best.

I decided to do some more math and applied Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem for baseball to this season. The formula, for those who are not into Bill James, is based upon runs scored and runs given up. Take the number of runs a team scores and multiply it by itself, squaring the figure. Then, divide that by the number of runs scored squared added to the number of runs given up squared.

What?

Here’s the formula: (Runs scored)2 /  [(runs scored)2 + (runs allowed)2]

Then, take that figure and divide it by the number of games played in a season. In my case of 1947, 154 games, to determine the expected won-loss record.

By doing this, I noticed a few things. Both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees are expected to go 106-48 for the season. The Chicago White Sox, which are playing at about a .500 pace, have a collapse in their future, according to the theorem. Because the team hasn’t scored many runs so far and given up 50 more than scored, the Sox are predicted to win only 52 games. The hapless Senators will win only 47 game and finish last in the American League, based on James’ math.

In the National League, the Cardinals dominate. The theorem shows a stunning final record of 122-32. Brooklyn is second with a forecasted record of 95-59 – one game better than their actual record of 94-60, which was good enough to win the real 1947 National League pennant. Pittsburgh is predicted to win only 44 games, which doesn’t seem too far-fetched of a record when considering the Pirates are 10-28 now in my replay.

Obviously, it’s still early in the season to really extrapolate firm predictions from the math. The Cardinals could face Braves’ pitchers Warren Spahn and Jonny Sain in a low-scoring weekend series ahead and the numbers could be skewed some.

Still, it’s fun to apply the theorem and get one idea of what could happen. The Red Sox-Yankees season race looks good no matter how you add it up.

Gym Nauseam

The fitness center Holly and I are members of has a long-standing tradition of leaving scores of Tootsie Rolls in a bucket on the counter for customers. It seems kind of counter-productive. Work out for two hours in an attempt to lose weight and tone up and then grab gooey chocolate on the way out.  But, it’s the gym’s signature, I guess, and who doesn’t like a Tootsie Roll after riding a bike for miles or pushing weights or walking aimlessly on a treadmill?

The Tootsie offering is long-standing because it had been more than 200 days since we last went there and the bucket was sitting on the counter back then, too. I know this because when we signed in the other day, I mentioned it had been a while since we had been there. The check-in guy, who, like all fitness center guys was too fit for his own good, looked up our account and felt it necessary to tell us we last graced the place 210 days ago.

I felt guilty and way out of shape. Standing next to the check-in guy, I felt like a huge blob. I tried to suck in my gut some and hoped Holly wouldn’t notice.

Welcome to our return to the chain exercise place I call “Planet Fatass.”

We had been meaning to go for some time. But finding the time is difficult. Weekends are shot since I work 12-hour shifts each day. Wednesdays are church nights, Thursday is garbage collection night and Fridays are Dateline NBC date nights.  We used to watch a show on Tuesdays night as well. That leaves Mondays.

So, we decided to go last Monday. Holly has been having some pain in her shoulder and back that doctors suggested could be eased by physical therapy. Lately, my left knee feels like it’s about to fall off and I think exercise would strengthen the hinge. We could work out some and I could catch the Monday Night Football game on one of the 2,000 television monitors hanging in the gym.

We donned our sweat pants and tee-shirts and headed there. Holly looked cute. I looked like the Michelin Man going on a donut binge.

Holly and I approached our gymnastic tasks differently. She began slowly, leisurely pedaling a stationary recumbent bike and then stretching on a mat. I got on the bike and thought, “Wonder how fast I can get this sumbitch up to?”

It went downhill from there. While Holly did meticulous exercises, doing gentle “reps” on the various machines, I got bored and wandered around. I got on a stair climber and felt like my knee cap was going to blast off into the gym when I began ascending flights of steps. I stumbled off the climber and looked for a recumbent elevator instead.

I also stacked on weights, trying to look like some strong guy. None of this wimpy small stuff for me. Bring on the he-man “reps.” I began pushing on one machine with my injured knee, hoping to strengthen it.  My knee started weeping.

We left two and a half hours later. Philadelphia beat the Giants in overtime on the televised game and we felt like we had completed our workouts. Two days later, I walked in muscle-stretched pain, strutting around like a cowboy who rode a porcupine from Denver to San Antone.

We vowed to come back sooner than the 210 days we last returned, hoping we could turn this into a routine. If my knee got worse, I could quit, using it as an excuse to become stationary and roll more APBA games at home. If it got better, it was something I had done right.

We felt good about the first routine. At least Holly did. But I thought about making improvements, about being able to do the stair climber thing without stringing multiple  curse words together, about losing weight and  looking – if not as good as the fit check-in guy – at least better than a stunt double for when they remake the movie “The Blob.”

So, we left the gym happily. And on the way out, I grabbed a fistful of those Tootsie Rolls for the trip home.

Squeaky the Cat

I swore I’d never get another cat as I drove back from the veterinarian in January 2015. I was forced to put to sleep May, a cat I had for eight years, after she got sick. A grief counselor I was mandated to see by my job after my wife passed away in 2006 suggested I get a cat to replicate the care I gave my wife during her illness. May got sick and on Jan. 28, 2015, I had to take her to the vet for a final time. I couldn’t handle more loss, so I vowed no more pets.

A year and a half later, I was driving through Effingham, Ill., late at night with two cats in carriers in the back seat of my car when I looked back for a glance. Both cats were yowling and both had tipped their water bowls and litter pans, making a pretty pungent paste. One cat was reaching through the bars of her cage in an apparent attempt to trip the latch on the other cat’s carrier. They were Bear and Weasel, Holly’s cats, who were moving to Arkansas.

In December of 2018, I held Bear as he had seizures and died on the way to the vet. The following spring, I found Weasel between some boxes and a shelf. She had passed away, too.

So, again, I swore I’d never have another cat. I deal with abandonment issues as it is, having lost pretty much anyone or anything close to me. Losing pets was heart-breaking; creating lasting bonds is tough.

But this past June, I found myself and Holly heading to our town’s Pet Smart to adopt another cat. We saw him a week earlier in the store’s kennel, a lanky black cat that appeared shy, reserved, quiet and lonely. Both of us are somewhat shy and reserved, so his personality seemed to match ours. Little did we know he was putting on an act, perhaps to better his chances at adoption.

He was shy, reserved and quiet for a few hours after we took him home. He slunk out of his carrier and skittered off under a bed to hide where we thought he’d stay for a while. But he came out at 3 a.m., jumped on the bed and, after we pet him and welcomed him to our little fold, he became the crazy cat that he is.

We renamed him Squeaky because of his odd, squeaking meow. He’s less than a year old, but long like a panther and quick like, well, a panther, too.  The world is his scratching post. He uses the leg of our wooden dining room table to sharpen his talons; the table now looks like we have a pet beaver in the home that enjoys frequent gnawing. He also runs up to me when I come home from work, stands on his hind legs, props his front legs on my knee as if he wants to be picked up and then sinks his claws into me.

I’ve had four cats since I moved to the town I’m in. Each had distinctive personalities. May was the first and she was an APBA cat. Replayers know what I am talking about. I mentioned this fact years ago on the APBA Facebook page and several shared photographs of their cats sitting by their game tables, looking at the dice and players’ cards.

I’d roll games in the baseball room and May would sit with me, either on the floor or another chair. I used to leave the room open and one day I found the two APBA game dice missing.  I always left them on the table, but I assume May began playing with them when I was away and ate them. I sifted through her little box for a few weeks, searching for the missing die (Gives a new meaning to rolling craps, doesn’t it?), but never found them.

The other two cats, Bear and Weasel, would stop in to see what I was doing when I played my various replays, but then would move on.

Squeaky watches as baked potatoes 

cook in a microwave

Squeaky hasn’t shown any interest in the game yet.

However, the other night, Holly and I were watching television in the living room when Squeaky trotted through the room. Jutting from his mouth was a long pretzel rod. I keep a bag of the pretzels on the APBA game table to chomp during games and accidently left the room door open. Squeaky jumped up on the table and, without disturbing the cards laid out for the next game, the dice, notebook and pens, he was able to pull a pretzel rod from the bag and jump back down. He proudly pranced through the living room, the pretzel clenched in his mouth like an old George Burns cigar.

There’s hope Squeaky may become an APBA cat after all.

Cornucopia of Games

It was going to rain all day Thursday and Friday, knocking out any chance for cutting limbs and doing any yard work. We only had a brief Thanksgiving lunch outing planned and Holly intended to sleep in both Thursday and Friday.

Even Squeaky, our rambunctious cat, was settled down, skipping his hobby of knocking things off flat surfaces, chewing plants and using furniture as his personal scratching posts.

After spending most of my career in news, for the first time in three decades, I had two days off for the Thanksgiving holiday and there was nothing to do.

It was the perfect time to roll out the dice and make some headway in my 1947 APBA baseball replay.

I’ve been averaging about two games a day since I began the replay in August. A decent pace compared to my previous venture – the 1991 replay that took nearly four years to complete. But it was slower than my other attempts back when I had no personal life.

Like all replays I’ve done, I get into the season and live it, learning players and watching for their trends. Will Ralph Kiner hit another home run for the Pirates like he did 51 times in the actual season? Will the New York Giants clobber home runs, but also get caught on the bases because of their plethora of slow runners?  Will the hapless Washington Senators ever win a game?  Will the schizophrenic Chicago White Sox figure out if they are winners or losers?

I intended to start answering some of those questions during the two-day holiday.

I ended playing 25 games. I had five shutouts, one game that more closely resembled a football score and several double-headers that were scheduled for May 18 that included the White Sox and Yankees splitting games with scores of 5-2. And the Senators actually won.

The run of replay games actually began Wednesday night.  The Cubs opened the stretch with a quiet 2-0 victory over the Giants. Chicago pitcher Johnny Schmitz gave up only two hits and struck out six – a hefty amount considering the pitching of that year. Washington then surprised Cleveland, winning 4-3, as Early Wynn went the distance.

Then, the Giants beat the Cubs on Bobby Thomson’s seventh home run, despite Cubs’ outfielder Bill Nicholson clubbing his 10^th home run of the season.

The White Sox and Yanks split their doubleheader and then Brooklyn and Pittsburgh kicked off their contest.

Six home runs later, including two each by Kiner and Carl Furillo, the Bums pasted the Bucs, 25-17. Furillo had eight RBIs and Dixie Walker added six RBIs for the Dodgers. Even Gil Hodges, who wasn’t used much in 1947, hit a three-run home run in the second inning. Kiner drove in 5 RBIs.

Pittsburgh led, 11-10, in the fifth inning and then remembered they were Pittsburgh who, at 9-23, is the worst team in the replay. The Pirates pitchers gave up 12 runs in the sixth inning on 11 hits. Pete Reiser added a field goal of RBIs, driving in three on two singles. In the actual game played on May 17, 1947, Pittsburgh beat Brooklyn, 4-0. Hank Greenberg hit the only home run in that game for the Pirates.

Here lies the oddity of APBA and what makes the game so fun. Twelve replayed games later, Pittsburgh hosted the Giants again. Kiner hit his ninth home run, but instead of a score-fest, the Pirates won, 2-1. Same players, different outcome. The anything-can-happen aspect gives the joy to this game.

The Phillies continued their shocking start, beating the Reds, 6-2, and compiling an 18-17 record. The Cardinals still lead the National League, although the Boston Braves are playing well and are only a game behind the Birds. Red Munger beat the Phillies for his league-leading sixth win and back-up Cards’ catcher Joe Garagiola hit his second home run of the season to help Munger.

I went to my weekend job on Saturday, ending the run of games. I played nine that Wednesday night, seven on Thursday and eight on Friday. I could only muster enough awakedness to roll one game on Saturday after pulling my routine 12-hour shift at work.

The point of all this is that a replayer becomes immersed in the game. Playing a lot like I did got me into the season better. I remembered players’ outcomes the games before. I noticed Bobby Thomson was coming around for the Giants, getting key hits at important times. Kiner, like he did in the real season, was good with the bat, but, like Sammy Sosa did in 1998, hit the home runs at inopportune times for his team, padding the stats, but not helping much in the team’s win column.

Playing the series of games was like reading the sports page and checking standings daily. Most teams played each day during my three-day run, so the stats and records were constantly changing.

It was a great holiday.

My next days off are Christmas Eve and Christmas. Holly and I don’t have any travel plans for the holiday. Looks like another APBA marathon could occur while we wait for Santa to show up.